Hungarian Cucumber Salad aka Uborkasaláta for #SundaySupper

This week I am honored yet again to be able to participate in FamilyFoodie‘s #SundaySupper hashtag extravaganza. The subject of this week’s post is #BeatTheHeat and it is being hosted by the lovely Jen of Juanita’s Cucina. She is posting a Biscoff Ice Cream Cupcake recipe, and I am posting a fantastically light, summery salad that I learned from my Hungarian husband. It’s the in-laws’ recipe all the way from Hungary!

It’s a Hungarian Cucumber Salad that they call Uborkasaláta in their slightly-less-than-easy language. It’s pronounced something like [“ooh-bork-uh-shuh-lah-tuh”] which barely comes close to how they pronounce it. Haha. They even have a cute shortened name for this salad, and it’s something like [“oobee-shawllee”]. Man, it’s almost impossible to write Hungarian phonetically! Whatever, you get my drift.

This salad is typically eaten with many heavy, meat-centric meals (like most Hungarian meals) and they eat this salad a little different than we typically do. Usually, instead of eating a salad as an appetizer of sorts, they eat this right along side their main meal, alternating bites to get something heavy and something light at the same time. I love the idea of deliberately balancing flavors and food weight like that. There are variations of this salad which include raw, minced garlic (awesome) and some don’t use sour cream. Also, if you slice the cucumbers too thick, my husband will bitch at you that, “it’s not quite like the one at home.” So if you want to ward off any feelings of inadequacy, make sure to slice the cucumbers thin enough, dummy.

Here is the video tutorial, with the recipe below that. And links to everyone else who is participating in this week’s #SundaySupper post are right below that!

Using a mandoline slicer, slice both entire cucumbers as thinly as possible into a bowl. Add the salt and mix the cucumbers to lightly and evenly coat. Let bowl sit in refrigerator for 30 minutes to draw out water from the cucumbers. Discard all but roughly 1/4 – 1/2 cup of the liquid.

Add the vinegar and sugar to the bowl and mix thoroughly, adjusting measurements so the taste of the vinegar is softened by the sugar.

Wow, I can’t help drooling. I just love cucumber salads :D
Well done Cheri!
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Thanks so much for your lovely comment! :D To answer your question, yes, you can absolutely pour off the water and squeeze them a bit more! I always squeeze them a bit, but I leave at least most of the water in there, because I like it to be in a lot of it to thin out the vinegar. You can remove as much as you like!

Husband always says that it doesn’t matter if you get rid of the water or not — sometimes his family would pour it off, and sometimes not. Just make it so you like the taste of the vinegar/sugar solution and you’ll be fine! :)

And yeah…I’m not even going to attempt Dutch, but I love your phonetic spelling too!! :D Merry Christmas!

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